The top news story out of Iraq today reports a massive suicide car bomb in Baqouba. Early reports neglected to mention that the target of the bombing was an Iraqi police station, in front of which lines of Iraqis applying for jobs as policemen had formed, but that information is now out. It is well known that guerillas have targeted the Iraqi police force for being collaborators with the occupation, but a report from Newsday reveals another reason for Iraqis to hate the NEW! Iraqi Police:
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Intelligence Service has its own secret prison. Criminals wear uniforms and collect police salaries. Senior security officials hand out jobs to family members. Investigators charged with being watchdogs over the police say they have little or no power. They report to the interior minister rather than to justice itself. The police arrest the innocent, beat them, and imprison them without charge; and in at least one case, police shot dead an innocent bystander.
This is not Saddam Hussein’s corrupt police state. This is the new Iraq run by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the man the international community is hoping will shepherd Iraqi democracy into being early next year. There are so many corrupt, violent and useless police officers in the new Iraqi police force that, according to a senior American adviser to the Iraqi police, the U.S. government is about to pay off 30,000 police officers at a cost of $60 million to the American taxpayer.
Did you get that last bit? The US government is paying 60 MILLION dollars stolen from American taxpayers for 30,000 Iraqi “police” to go away.
The staggering cost and violent results of the repeated asinine blunders committed by the clueless neocons and Bushie nation-builders in Iraq is no surprise for those who’ve watched this farce unfold. Could anyone read this and not feel a frisson of dread as well as anger at the hypocrisy and stupidity of the War Party?
United States occupation authorities are recruiting and training agents with the Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to US forces after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings.
The employment of agents of Saddam Hussein’s brutal security services underscores a growing recognition that US forces cannot alone prevent attacks like the bombing of the United Nations headquarters last week.
Authorities had stepped up recruitment over the past two weeks, a senior US official said.
“The only way you can combat terrorism is through intelligence,” the senior official said. “It’s the only way you’re going to stop these people from doing what they’re doing.”
Officials are reluctant to disclose how many former agents have been recruited since the effort began. But Iraqi officials say they number anywhere from dozens to a few hundred, and US officials acknowledge that the recruitment is extensive.
OK, so now we have installed the thug Allawi in place of Saddam and recreated Saddam’s Mukhbarat. Allawi is shooting people in cold blood and sending goon squads out to round up entire neighborhoods. His secret police are torturing and beating prisoners and the New! IP are shaking down Iraqis at checkpoints and working with kidnappers. What was the justification for invading Iraq again? Anybody? Is anyone still mystified as to why the guerillas would attack the Iraqi “police” so relentlessly?
